The purpose of this blog is to provide a holding, attuned, and provocative space for the mysteries of your heart to unfold. All of you is welcome here, in all of your glory - the painful, the joyous, the heartbroken, and the weary. The invitation is to see your entire life as an expression of high-voltage, creative guidance, and for you to offer yourself to the endless and infinite dimension of love that is emerging within and around you right now.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

The path of true compassion

It is important to realize that the path of opening the
heart is not the path of becoming an emotional doormat for the unloading of
others’ unconscious, unresolved beliefs, emotions, “teachings,” and behaviors.
The only way to care for and metabolize the “other” within us – that which we
have previously disavowed and sequestered into the wilderness of the shadow –
is by way of profound levels of self-compassion.

For many, this sort of self-love does not come easy, as
it was not encoded into neural circuitry in environments that lacked
consistent, empathic attunement to a little one’s unfolding emotional world.
But it is something you can learn, now. Wherever you are. The pathways are
fluid and are awaiting reorganization by love.

The qualities of empathy, attunement, and kindness are
not passive, yielding, and always sweet and peaceful. At times they take on
wrathful forms, but always remain grounded in compassion. They are hardwired in
us, however have become obscured due to misattuned relational experiences and
our subsequent ways of organizing those experiences in a tender brain, nervous
system, and developing heart.

In the tantric tradition, there are four pathways of
relating with unresolved energy: pacifying, enriching, magnetizing, and
destroying. Pure, transformative compassion will make use of each of these
energies at different times in order to act in ways that are both wise and
skillful. True compassion is not always soft, capitulating, and surrendering,
but at times is fiery and fierce. But this fire and ferocity emerges from a
heart that is wide open, and a longing to dissolve suffering in all its forms,
for both self and other.

While perhaps appearing “compassionate” on the outside,
being an emotional doormat usually involves the re-enacting of early,
unconscious dynamics. We learned that devaluing ourselves, often in very subtle
ways, was the best route to get our needs met, to fit in, to receive attention
and affection, and to maintain a precarious tie to an unavailable attachment
figure.

As a young child, this was very intelligent and creative,
and served to protect us from all sorts of overwhelm and dysregulation. From
this perspective, these strategies may be seen as a certain form of grace; not
wrong, bad, or “unspiritual,” but simply out of date and no longer of service
to an adult longing for intimacy, connection, and aliveness.

Because the pathways are luminous – neither solid nor
fixed – it is very possible to encode new circuitry that is organized around
empathy, kindness, and presence. But this possibility occurs only by way of
self-compassion, not by re-enacting old strategies of being a doormat.

Look carefully and see the ways you habitually place
others’ needs over your own… not out of true compassion for them, but as a
re-enactment of an early environment of shame and unworthiness.

With the beloved as your guide – in whatever raging form
he or she may choose to take – pour your holy awareness and loving presence
into the beliefs, the emotions, the sensations, and the behaviors which are now
arising for update and integration.

Surround your immediate experience with spacious warmth
and holding, surrender the habitual abandonment of yourself once and for all,
and seed a new pathway.

1 comment:

Thank you for this! I am dealing with a very difficult family dynamic that really needs "fierce grace", but I know that if I speak up a vulnerable person in the dynamic will pay the consequences. The dysfunctional "elephant in the room" has all the control and power in this situation and I have been trying to find a "solution" for years! - of how to address this, how to resolve this - without confrontation that would create more of a problem. I end up being co-dependent, acquiescing to the dysfunctional power holder. I try to be present as much as I can, not being triggered by "the elephant", but "the elephant" knows how to trigger me and put up walls to protect itself from exposure. It's actually a very emotionally entangled situation that is difficult to disentangle oneself from and navigate through while still honoring myself... Thanks again, Christine

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About Me

I am a psychotherapist, author, and teacher, working with individuals and groups worldwide. My latest book, The Path is Everywhere, will be available in June 2017. To learn more about me and my work, please visit my website.

I have a PhD in psychology, where my research interests included
contemporary psychodynamic/ relational theory as well as mindfulness-based, contemplative approaches to psychological healing and spiritual transformation. I have long been interested in the dialogue
between Western, developmental and meditative methods of
inquiry and practice.

I worked in the publishing field for over 24 years, most recently Director of Professional Studies for Sounds True, where I organized online training for mental health professionals seeking to deepen their practice in areas such as attachment, trauma, neuroscience, and mindfulness.